


In High Spirits

by BlueEyedArcher



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Body Horror, Dead People, Fear, Hallucinations, Near Death Experiences, Paranormal, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 04:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15987218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueEyedArcher/pseuds/BlueEyedArcher
Summary: Rook’s frown had been set on his face for ten minutes now while the baptist ranted incessantly about sins and the soul and something in there about confessing. It was all very suggestive in the long run but Rook couldn’t find the mind to focus on John’s usual monologuing and enjoy coaxing at the edges of his patience with biting retorts and sarcastic responses. He was too focused on the woman in the corner.--------------In which Rook has too many near death experiences and can now see dead people. But he doesn't know they're dead and neither do they. The Seeds are not amused.





	In High Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> In which Rook has too many near death experiences and can now see dead people. But he doesn't know they're dead and neither do they. The Seeds are not amused.

Rook’s frown had been set on his face for ten minutes now while the baptist ranted incessantly about sins and the soul and something in there about confessing. It was all very suggestive in the long run but Rook couldn’t find the mind to focus on John’s usual monologuing and enjoy coaxing at the edges of his patience with biting retorts and sarcastic responses. He was too focused on the woman in the corner. 

 

This was Rook’s second visit to John’s humble dungeon in the basement of the baptist’s bunker. It hadn’t really changed all that much in the grand scheme. Maybe a few more human Scales hanging in the rafters than before and the rusty cart that had been wheeled to the side of the chair was now absent. His workbench replacing it, not tipped over this time though the muscle in John’s neck warned the threat was near. Unlike last time where the confession had been as John had said “Private.” There were five other bodies present in the room with them. All of them were in some state of ignorance towards the odd set up going on. Two were armed peggies that lingered near the doorway, eyes unfocused like they’d spent too long in the presence of bliss. There were two civilians who may or may not have been with the Fall’s End resistance standing against the adjacent wall, hands clasped together with duct taped. The same stripe of silvery adhesive covering their mouths. 

 

In the far corner though, was a young woman in skin tight jeans and a dingy pink blouse. Her long brunette hair pooling over her shoulders as she huddled up as close to the wall as possible. She was crying, obscenely enough that Rook couldn’t help but look. His brows pinching with growing concern as her wails echoed within the claustrophobic confines of the room. Nobody else seemed fazed by the noise making Rook wonder how long she had been left like that. 

 

His attention was caught only briefly by the sway of a slender bolt of metal as John taunted him with the tip of the screwdriver, knuckles blanched white with how fiercely he was holding the handle. He cleared his throat, displeasure oozing from his features as he demanded Rook’s full attention. “It’s bad enough you ignore me over the radio, Deputy. But I will not tolerate this insolence any further while in the same room.” He pressed the edge of the screwdriver along the open front of Rook’s flannel. The deputy wasn’t entirely sure when John had pulled back the fabric to expose his chest and the half finished sin resting there. 

 

John’s lips curled into something foul as he studied the inky lines of WRA. He sighed heavily after a moment, fingers brushing over each individual letter and mapping out the space for the following two. “Look at this. It’s such a mess.” He hissed out, turning away from Rook long enough to release the screwdriver and rummage through his tool kit for his tattoo gun.

 

“You’re a heartless son of a bitch, you know that?” Rook growled, his gaze shifting slowly from the baptist back to the corner where the woman’s cries stifled to soft utterances barely audible across the room. Every time John spoke, she seemed to stir back into harder blubbering sobs, shaky and frightened. The buzz of the tattoo gun humming in the air made them sharp like a metallic screech. Rook flinched back, pressing his body down into the seat with the urge to cover his ears, conflicting with the sudden urge to strangle the baptist and both peggies. “Why won’t you do something? Can’t you hear her crying?” Rook blurted in disbelief, burning on the edges with the fire of anger.

 

John seemed taken aback by the sudden outburst by the deputy. Watching their features twist up in disgust. The way his eyes narrowed with something jagged and aggressive. “I don’t appreciate your tone, deputy.” John warned, holding up the tattoo gun as it hummed and hovered over Rook’s chest. “The only noises I want to hear out of you are the sounds of confession.” Rook gritted his teeth as the needle was pressed to his skin. John’s figure blotting out his view of the crying woman as her sobs faded into soft whimpers. The pain of the needle in his flesh and the sound of the gun was loud in his ears making it hard to focus on anything else. Bright blue eyes fixed with intent on the word carefully laid out in his skin. He felt the rush of dizziness, a sudden wave that washed over him, twisting up his sense of time and reasoning. By the time John finished, they were completely alone. The woman was gone as were the pair of captives and the peggies that lingered so oddly in the corner. The open stairway was the only exit they could have gone but Rook didn’t even hear them descend the rough metal steps.

 

The baptists attempts to cleanse him and draw forth a confession were interrupted by the entry of another peggy. Hushed words forming between the bearded man’s lips and the baptist’s ear. John growled in disapproval, his eyes fixing on Rook as he turned off the tattoo gun. “Stay here, deputy. It would seem our friend Hudson isn’t behaving as she should.” Rook grunted in response, his gaze sweeping around the room for some sign that the people had been present. His mind still curling over the fact John seemed so unhindered by the noise and the presence. His thought carried him past the point of the baptist’s absence and lingered along the edges of his consciousness. The sting of the tattoo a refreshing reminder that he needed to leave before John comes back and flays it off his chest. 

 

It took far more energy than he would have liked to escape John’s bunker the second time in a row. Seriously, he had done this the first time but it would seem they switched things up. Kept him on his toes with the new series of locks and doors that he had to navigate on hands and knees, tucking behind boxes and sneaking past the overabundance of angels. He managed to escape unnoticed this time though and made it back to Fall’s End in one piece. Still a little sore about his lost weaponry and feeling unnerved by the entire scene that went on back at the bunker. 

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


Several days had passed since Rook escaped John’s bunker and he found himself stuffed in yet another predicament. John’s broadcasts had grown increasingly aggressive and violently suggestive to the point Rook couldn’t walk ten steps without the baptist threatening to stick something in him. Given, most of them were very detailed scenarios of knives and screwdrivers (he really likes the screwdriver for some weird reason.) but Rook wasn’t in the mood for the sexual euphemisms or being reminded by his friends at how awkwardly worded John was making his threats. They were very pointed and direct. In an attempt to flee the pressure that had started to suffocate him in the Valley, Rook took his happy intact ass up north for some crisp cool refreshing mountain air. And copious amounts of feral bliss induced animals snarling at his heels. 

 

One wolf beacon into the Whitetail Mountains and Rook managed to garner Jacob Seed’s attention. An outpost later and the soldier had him gunned down by his Chosen and dragged back at the end of the bliss covered arrow lodged into his thigh. Rook was forced through a long ass monologue about survival of the fittest and the strong devouring the weak. He tried his best to ignore the images of carnage and wolves ripping into the carcasses of unlucky prey. His attention flitted around the room only briefly when the allowance was offered, taking in the sight of a dozen or so whitetails in the shadows of the little room. Two in front of him, locked down into the same kinds of chairs he was. The rest were scattered throughout the room, in areas he couldn’t see well. He assumed they were each bound or tied up, appeared to be seated but he couldn’t tell before Jacob demanded his attention back.

 

The trials were a blur, a red haze of panic and desperation. Adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pushed his body to the limit. His limbs extending muscles and demanding more from them in that short burst of violence than he had done in the last few chaotic weeks running about the Valley. 

 

When the rose tinted nightmare ended, he found himself curled up on the cold metal surface of a cage. The heat of the sun beating down on him in the courtyard, the howls of Judges breaking the natural silence of the mountain side. The cages around him were filled, some were packed in like sardines with wounded and weary whitetails. Others had only a couple resting in odd corners. There was only one other in the cage with him, a young man in civilian attire that clutched to the bars in the corner as if it were the only thing keeping him upright anymore. His face pressed into the narrow slots between. 

 

Any attempts at talking to the other was met with silence. He didn’t even get a glance from the young man and the surrounding whitetails gazed at him in momentary sweeps. Eyes dead and unfocused, hollow life with an unsettling cloudy aura to them. They looked bliss induced, their stares unblinking. Some were beady and dark, eyes narrowed to slits as they slogged through the weariness of trying to stay conscious. Their skin rashy in areas, some had open lacerations and bruises. The stench of decay burning his nostrils as he tucked himself away. The bitter sour rot of bile infiltrating his senses and making him gag.

 

As the days faded in and out, Rook struggled through the heat of the days and the stifling humidity of the nights, clinging to his skin and refusing even a momentary relief from the oppressive summer temperatures. Every time he stirred to consciousness, he would find the cages a little more empty and different people milling about inside. Some were the same, never listening to his attempts to talk with them and he never noticed when the peggies would come and pull them from their confinement. One minute they’re there the next, they’re gone and some poor miserable sap has replaced them looking worse than the last. 

 

After the seventh day, Rook was offered food from Jacob accompanied by more lecturing about strength. It was all very amusing for the first minute or so before Rook would turn away and continue to ignore the sweat that pasted his clothes to his skin. The sores that formed from the chafing of rough fabric. The dryness of the part left exposed to the elements. When Jacob walked away, Rook crawled over to the bowl resting by the bars and considered the content. His eyes flitting over towards the cage beside him where two Whitetails had been tucked away. They were the only ones who had remained for more than two days. They never really spoke other than mumbled words and soft whimpers. Their faces gaunt with hunger, their bodies in far worse shape than Rook’s own. 

 

“Here.” Rook spoke a brittle rasp in his voice from dehydration. He endeavored to stay quiet, to avoid being noticed by the guards. Sharing food would warrant punishment. He didn’t want them to be hurt for his generosity so he attempted to be as discreet as possible, pushing his body flush against the bars as he held the bowl towards one of the whitetails. “You need it more than I do.”

  
  
  


Jacob was unaware of the oddity going on in his courtyard. The deputy had refused to interact with him or the food that was offered, something of which the soldier assured himself would break the moment he walked away and made himself scarce. What he hadn’t anticipated was the sight he was alerted to not even twenty minutes later. One of the guards left to keep an eye on the lone Deputy radioed for him to return to the courtyard. There, creeping on the edges of view, Jacob was able to see Rook pressed as close to the bars as possible. 

 

From this distance he couldn’t make out what was being said but he could see the deputy was reaching through the bars, lips moving with words as he offered the only bit of food he was allowed in weeks, though to whom, Jacob wasn’t sure. The deputy’s cage and those around Rook had been empty upon his arrival. Not once in the seven days he has been captive was there anyone occupying them yet Jacob caught the deputy speaking to the empty lots. He would stare off distantly with a mournful expression, features pinched with concern.

 

Had this behavior begun later on in Jacob’s conditioning, he would have brushed it off as being driven by stress or dehydration. All of which Jacob himself had suffered through back in the deserts with Miller. But this had been going on since day one. It wasn’t as noticeable at first but Jacob kept a close eye on the lawman. He watched as he made several attempts to speak to the empty space at his side. Not just in one direction of cages but all around him with nobody but the guards present to witness the absurdity. He thought maybe Rook was playing games, had heard John rant over the radio one too many times about the deputy’s ‘’audacity” to ignore him when in the same room. Jacob had assumed it was just John overreacting but seeing the Deputy as he was currently, murmuring to non-existent beings left a sour taste in the back of Jacob’s throat. As if he were playing with a mind already broken. It made it unpredictable and harder to mold. It’s jagged and broken.

 

After several more minutes of watching Rook slowly grow frustrated with whoever he was speaking with, the energy in his actions slumping as did the disappointment in his features. Jacob took a few swift strides towards the cage, garnering Rook’s attention at the movement in his peripheral. 

 

“What do you want now?” Rook groaned, his hands coming to rest around himself, no longer holding the bowl which was tipped over at his side. He glared at Jacob with a venomous scowl.

 

“Just seein who it is you find so amusing.” A flash of white teeth bared into a wolfish grin made Rook shudder and hunker down more in his corner of misery. The bars of the cage biting into his back with the awkward shape against his spine. 

 

“Why? Haven’t you tortured these people enough?”The words were bitten off with an unamused edge. 

 

“What people?” Jacob pressed, his hand gesturing towards the cage at Rook’s side. Rook narrowed his eyes at Jacob, his lips parting to snap another sharp comment his direction but Jacob cut his attempt off before it produce more than a growl. “There is nobody here, deputy.”

 

Rook frowned, not finding the soldier’s jokes entertaining whatsoever. “Don’t be an asshole, Seed.” He snapped. “I’ve had enough of your mind games.”

 

“Deputy.” Jacob spoke carefully, shaping each word that passed his lips with moderate attention. “You have been the only one in these cages since you arrived.” He explained. “I haven’t brought in a single other whitetail or moved any prisoners during your stay.”

 

“Bullshit.” Rook blurted, getting to his feet with a light stumble. His head rushing with dizziness at the sudden upright motion. He swayed on his feet and grappled the bars to correct himself and make the world stop moving. “I’ve seen your men moving them.” Rook gestured towards a peggy standing glossy eyed a few yards back. Jacob turned slowly to look at the spot Rook indicated but no guard was present. Jacob had ordered them to give him privacy. The courtyard was empty. No visible prisoners, guards or Judges present. 

 

“What do you think you’re seeing, deputy?” Jacob’s brows were furrowed in uncharacteristic concern. Rook staggered back, looking around at the unmoving glossy eyed whitetails resting in the corners of the adjacent cage. “Take a good long look, deputy. What do you see?” Jacob reached a hand through the cage, a hand coming to rest on Rook’s shoulder, squeezing it firmly in his fingers to keep him from falling away, helping steady his swaying posture. 

 

They looked like whitetails. Their militia garments were clear as day. Their bodies battered from waging war, covered in sores and lacerations like Rook. The distinct scent of rot curled up at his nostrils once more, making him nauseous as he attempted a deep breath to calm his shaky nerves. They never met his gaze, their lips parting with raspy mumbles, distant and uninterested. They never once interacted with each other let alone Rook himself. Before he never considered that to be out of the ordinary. “Whatever it is you think you see, it isn’t there.” Jacob pointed out. 

 

He released his hold on Rook and walked around to the adjacent cage. He footsteps shifting from the crunch of gravel to the rough scrape of boots on metal as he entered the cage, walking along the edges of the bars. As he stepped towards the whitetails they made no move to get away from him and in the next step, they vanished into a mirage of empty humid air. Rook’s knees gave out as he dropped to the metal with a painful grunt. The soldier didn’t need any further explanation to tell the deputy was finally grasping what was wrong. 

 

“How long has this gone on?” Jacob asked. “How long have you been seeing people who haven’t responded to you or those around them?” He lingered within the adjacent cage, arms crossed over his chest as he observed the lost expression on the deputy’s face. Eyes distant as they rummaged through the events in the past, wondering just how long this has all been going on. 

 

“I- I don’t know.” Rook admitted. “I can’t tell.”

 

“Take a rough guess.” Jacob prodded, his voice edged slightly with frustration, trying to coax an answer out of his companion.

 

“Since the chopper crash, I think.” He admitted pitifully, one hand reaching to brace against the bars. Jacob’s hand slipped through, catching his jaw as the soldier knelt until they were eye level. Those glacial blue hues meeting Rook’s foggy gaze, bleary with the prickling edges of frustration, swirling with mounting fear. 

 

“A head injury maybe? Doesn’t look like PTSD but it could be stress related or maybe…” Jacob hummed, his voice dropping low as he calculated how to work around this new tidbit of information. “You’ve been seeing prisoners and guards?” The inquiry came as Rook pulled his face away from Jacob’s touch, the calloused skin of his thumb brushing along his jaw before the deputy shuffled back as far as his arm would allow while still using the bar for support. He grunted an affirmation, nodding towards the two peggies who had been standing in one spot for hours, sometimes shifting their feet back and forth but never once leaving their post over the cages. Jacob cast a glance back towards the location before looking back at Rook with a sigh. 

 

“There’s nobody there.” Jacob’s reminder was met with a pitiful huff of spiraling displeasure. The drag in Rook’s posture sank lower as if he wished to fade into the floor and never move another muscle again. The fire in the deputy’s eyes flickering like a dying candle light. Jacob’s hand dropped to rest over the Deputy’s own, fingers curled around the bar in a weak grasp. “Don’t fret deputy. I can help you through this.” he assured, a deep purr on his lips that threatened to devour what was left of Rook’s dwindling sanity. 


End file.
